This weekend, I canvassed for the very first time for Bernie in Tennessee. I want to write a little about my experience to hopefully inspire anyone who is on the fence to pull the trigger and join this incredible movement.
Now, I am definitely someone who is extremely uncomfortable talking to strangers in general, let alone knocking on their doors. But I signed up for canvassing shifts all weekend anyway. I showed up on Thursday evening for my first shift.
I met all the people in the group, the Victory Captain was very nice, but this night did not go well. I got put in a group with two other people who also had never canvassed before, and our VC sent us to the wrong neighborhood.
The three of us were wondering around in the dark and cold in the wealthy side of Murfreesboro. We knocked a number of doors, with mostly no response, and the ones who did respond were extremely disinterested.
We went to another neighborhood, this one even wealthier than the last. We immediately had people peering at us through their doorways. We didn't talk to a single sympathetic person all night. We were very disappointed.
I went home that night feeling a little less hopeful than I did going in.
I woke up Friday morning extremely beaten down. I tried to think of excuses I could use to cancel the rest of my shifts. I didn't want to do it again. What difference was it going to make anyway? But I summoned the courage within me to go to my phonebanking shift that day.
I met our team leaders, and they were so encouraging. I made a few calls that day, talked to a few strong Bernie supporters, and began to feel a little less out of place. I left feeling good enough that I decided to go to my canvassing shift that night.
I went with a different group led by a different Victory Captain after she had invited me to that one. I got paired up with someone who had been canvassing for the last week or so, and we started at an apartment complex with a ton of college students in it.
We knocked dozens of doors, with mostly no response, but of the ones who responded, every single one was either already for Bernie or open to us talking to them about him.
We met several people who seemed very skeptical or apathetic at the beginning of the conversation, but by the end, I could tell that we had opened them up to being persuaded.
I could tell that just the simple fact that a candidate had people willing to go out there and talk to them, was enough to light a little spark inside them.
We met another man who worked at Nissan. He was concerned about the environment, and he also hated his employer health insurance. We told him about Bernie's Green New Deal and Medicare for All, and then talked to him about how much a union would help him and his coworkers.
The man was elated by the end of the conversation. He committed to vote for Bernie. That conversation completely changed the tide of how I was feeling about the weekend.
Seeing a regular guy get excited about a candidate because we simply had a conversation with him was one of the most inspiring things I've ever experienced. We knocked a few more doors in the complex, met a couple more people open to Bernie.
Then we moved on to a neighborhood behind the complex. This was clearly a working class neighborhood, so I could tell this was going to go better than the night before. The first door we knocked was a middle-aged man who by the look of him we assumed was probably a Trump guy.
We were wrong. We talked to him about what issues were most affecting him, and he told us he and his daughter both were diabetic, and that was why he supported Bernie because of his Medicare for All plan.
We were shocked to learn he was already supporting Bernie, but of course we were so excited to have his support. The very next house we knocked was a younger guy who, as soon as we told him we were with the campaign, gave us a big thumbs up and thanked us for our work.
We talked to a number of voters who were apathetic, who probably weren't going to vote. We told them about Bernie's platform, encouraged them to consider supporting him, and moved on.
Finally we talked to a woman who just absolutely unloaded every frustration she ever had with our political system, and told us that Bernie was her first choice. I went home that night feeling inspired and yearning to do more, so I signed up for two more shifts the next day.
Saturday we went out to La Vergne, a smaller town outside of Nashville. By this time I was taking the lead, helping another who was just starting. We canvassed a townhome complex, and got a few good responses.
That afternoon, I went out with a Nashville City Council Member who came out to help us. We canvassed a poor and working class neighborhood, and got a number of good responses.
We also got heckled by some Trump folks who told us that we were in the wrong neighborhood for Bernie, and if we did find support for him, it's because they are illegals. We didn't let the stupidity slow us down. We finished the neighborhood and got a few more responses.
I was tired. My feet were killing me. But I went home that night feeling deeply grateful, but I had no idea what was in store for me on Sunday. I decided that because I knew I couldn't help during the week, I would give it one last push on Sunday.
I showed up at 1:00, and we went out into some neighborhoods around campus in Murfreesboro.
The first little bit we didn't have much luck, as they were wealthier homes, but once we got into a working class apartment complex, we got responses at almost every door we knocked, and every one of them was either already supporting Bernie, or was extremely persuadable.
I started to feel really good. After that we moved into some of the poorer neighborhoods. We moved into one that was almost entirely black. What happened next was one of the most incredible things I've ever experienced.
We talked to a guy just as he was getting home, and he was convinced to vote for Bernie.
Then his father came riding up on a bicycle, and after talking for a few moments he told us about how he had a felony conviction, and that officials had lied to him for years that he could no longer vote.
His wife had helped him fill out some necessary paperwork and he got his right back. The next house we went to, a woman answered the door and we started talking up Bernie.
She told us she couldn't vote because she had a felony conviction. We told her that her neighbor had just told us about his experience, and she flagged him down to come talk to her.
The man explained to her that she was able to get her rights back if she followed through with a little paperwork. The pure elation on this woman's face when she learned she could get her right to vote back was one of the most inspiring things I have ever seen.
She told us that God had meant for her to talk to us that day. I don't think I've ever felt what I felt in that moment. Pure joy to see that we had helped someone understand their rights after having been lied to for so long.
Come to find out, this would be a problem throughout this neighborhood, and we told them all about what they needed to. I knew that if nothing else came of that day, that we had done good.
After that shift I was supposed to go home, but I decided I would give it one final push that night before work took me away from it during the week. I went with two girls who had never done it before.
We canvassed another working class neighborhood, and got a number of good responses. I was taking the lead.
In three days I had gone from absolutely clueless and on the verge of giving up forever to allowing the beauty of this movement to power me through and give me the confidence to spread the love it had shown me.
It is difficult to put into words the effect this weekend had on me. I knew Bernie was building something special, but I could never understand the reality until I experienced it for myself.
I could not be more grateful to be a part of a movement that is built on love and solidarity, and I have to encourage anyone who has been on the fence about canvassing or making calls or sending texts or whatever else it is, to pull the trigger and join this beautiful movement.
It's not too late to add your voice and give your labor to make sure that we build a future we can all believe in, in which we build a society that takes care of its most vulnerable and gives every single person a fighting chance.
